The present invention relates to messaging in mobile telecommunication systems and more particularly to presence attributes in a mobile instant messaging and presence service.
An instant messaging service provides the end users with a means for fast, interactive, mainly text-based communication. The utility of instant messaging is greatly enhanced by the addition of a service that will keep track of the online status and availability of your chat partners or “friends”; as well as notify you of changes to their status or availability. This type of service is called a “presence service”. In general, presence can be considered containing various dynamic information on a user or client connected to the instant messaging service via various means. Examples of this information is reachability, availability and location of the user for communication. The combination of instant messaging and presence services is called an instant messaging and presence service (IMPS). This kind of service has been available for wireline Internet users but the interconnectivity between wireline users and mobile users has been missing.
Wireless Village initiative has been established to define specifications for mobile instant messaging and presence service. The Wireless Village Instant Messaging and Presence Service (IMPS) includes four primary features: presence, instant messaging, groups and shared content. Shared content allows users and operators to setup their own storage area where they can post pictures, music and other multimedia content while enabling the sharing with other individuals and groups in an IM or chat session. The Wireless Village initiative enables both operators and end-users to create and manage groups. Presence is the key enabling technology for the Wireless Village initiative. In the existing Internet-based instant messaging service, the presence values are usually very simple, such as user is active, absent, not willing to communicate etc. These values are selected from the predefined sets of values. A white paper has been published on the Wireless Village mobile IMPS solution: “Wireless Village, The Mobile IMPS Initiative:White Paper”, dated on Apr. 26, 2001. The existing mobile terminal can be considered a personal tool which reflects the personal status more accurately than a desktop computer. Considering the wide range of information that may be obtained from the user and the mobile terminal, the anticipation of the presence information domain is very difficult. Thus a mechanism should be developed to enable easy usage and addition of new types of presence information.